The Poets Are Lonely and Horny

A true Gift is
Time alone but
This — is ridiculous —

Birds, Slants of light — who Cares?
Most treasured ventricle of Passion,
My lily-white butt.

I need to see a Person — before End Days,
Mine personally,

If you get my goddamn Drift —

- Emily Dickinson

No use, no good, not an out, not a dodge, just a fact, fail again, and then again, and again, that’s right you heard me, nothing good, no hope, no warmth, no life.

And you can’t even go to a bar.

• Samuel Beckett

I celebrate myself and I sing myself, which is fortunate because no one will come near me

And the whole thing is becoming a crushing weight upon my spirit
And it is a great weight of boredom if I say the truth
It is a vast smothering nothingness if I name it with honest clarity
I feel miserable and lonely and alone and unliked and unloved.

I loaf — I’m sure it’s not news to you — and I invite my soul (zzz) but would gladly invite you,
if you would get over your extreme caution. I was tested lo this past Friday.

• Walt Whitman

Whose woods these are I think I know

I was here two days ago

And I was here last week also

Just end up going to and fro.

My little horse is bored as well

To stare at woods that don’t compel

Us on our cold and silent way –

We don’t care if we go or stay.

I suppose I could turn and look

At the inevitably babbling brook

But I’ve seen it a thousand times.

I’m lonely. Is that a crime?

• Robert Frost

I have seen the best minds of my generation destroyed by boredom, stagnant apathetic supine,
dragging themselves through the week looking for something new on Netflix,
bed-headed housebound homebodies
who poked all day at boxes for a few slices of bread,
who lost their selves unshaven in underwear but couldn’t admit it,who sank all night in beds they barely deserved after a day of couches.

I’m with you in Memory Foam
I’m with you in Sealy
I’m with you in Posturepedic
In my dreams we walk still asleep to the doors of our delis and home again, that’s it.

• Allan Ginsburg

We were getting old but we were oddly merry

We discussed on Zoom our memories of the ferry

How we’d gone back and forth. Someone left the room,

And we wondered what we’d talk about in the next Zoom.

• Edna St. Vincent Millay

Think of that time in Ballyville the children gone off the wind so sharp you kissed me smooth and long extra hard so I could feel your lips under your mask and mine behind my mask then joining hands there you could feel flesh on flesh oh remember flesh on flesh and he loses it again there isn’t a rising swell for 100 miles all we have is hand sanitizer it kills plenty yes we won’t die yes but that’s a hitch the grocer rings up my grapes my ripe red grapes and he never looks at me like he used to my eyes burning my face red while he says you come again missus well now it’s just his slitty eyes they look so dead my eyes search your eyes we will never see mouths again if you’d just give me one more kiss yes kiss with your eyes it’s all we have and put your hand out if you’d just yes well with this cold year we don’t we just don’t as much just put your mouth here I can feel it even under your mask press it hard in the cold it can travel like your dear slitty eyes yes don’t forget me I’m under here same as before that’s the way put your hand I’ll remember you’re the one I think of yes it’s me do you see me but your slitty eyes are so dead drat it’s gone one more time it’s just no doesn’t come doesn’t work still I’ll be back tomorrow yes don’t forget me no don’t forget me no

• James Joyce